The thing about food stamps is, they’re called “food” stamps. Not “smartphone” or “iPod” or “tablet” stamps. You can’t eat those things (please don’t try), as they aren’t what’s known as “food.” As such, the owner of four dollar stores in New Jersey is in hot water after allegedly allowing customers to ring up more than $5 million fraudulent food stamp transactions.

Seven years ago, we were flipping houses with loans we received for passing the “Are you currently breathing?” underwriting requirements. Then it all collapsed and we transitioned from shopping at Neiman Marcus to the local dollar stores, which have ballooned in numbers due to a misguided belief that people will remain thrifty. [More]

The late 19th century gave us the five-and-dime store, where everything cost five or ten cents. Those are the ancestors of what we think of as a “dollar store” today. What you might not know is that dollar stores have been around for more than 140 years. It’s just that back then, a dollar could buy you a lot more, so they were rather swanky.

Learning how to handle problem customers in retail isn’t easy. If you treat them with even a fraction of the lack of respect they show to you, it can balloon into a full-on “situation.” And things can get especially complicated if that bad consumer has a little kid in tow.

For at least five days, the employees at a Family Dollar store in the St. Louis area claim they have been working without proper air-conditioning and that temperatures in the store have been in the triple digits. But that hasn’t stopped some customers from coming in.

The allure of the dollar store for some shoppers is the idea that they will save money compared to what they would spend going to another retailer. But that may not always be the case, especially if you’re buying larger sizes of some products.

Need something quick? You might be able to dash out and find a dollar store faster than you can spot a chain drugstore location. A new study says drugstores are being outpaced in numbers by the total amount of dollar stores in the U.S.

117,000 glass votive candle holders sold at Dollar Tree, Dollar Bill$, and Dollar Tree Deal$ stores have been recalled. They can shatter when they’re lit, leaving glass and fire all over the place where it can cut and/or burn you.

With many people still looking for ways to save in this tough economy, you might expect bargain-hunters lined up to buy things at dollar stores. But some practitioners of the dark art of extreme couponing (soon to be an X Games event, we hope), say that you can often do a lot better by going to your regular grocery or big box store so long as you come armed with coupons.

To promote the opening of a new store, ultra-discount chain 99 Cents Only stocked a few things they don’t normally carry, and sold them for 99 cents. Things like iPods and scooters. When they opened a store in San Jose, Calif., this sale proved popular. Very popular.

Salvage grocers are stores that stock all the dented, crushed, slightly past their “best by” date products that consumers have been trained to avoid. Because of this, they’re the Dollar General or Big Lots of supermarkets, with prices up to half off regular store prices, says the Associated Press.

Shelley just sent us this photo of a store she saw in New Jersey this afternoon. We particularly like that the neon signs in the window are just as contradictory as the roof signs. It’s like a decorating theme.

99 Cents Only, the L.A.-based chain of not-quite-a-dollar stores, has come up with a novel approach to the growing losses it faces as the economy worsens: they’re raising their top-priced items to 99.99 cents.

Can there be any sadder indication of our toilet-water economy than a dollar store that references its own happier, cheaper past? This New York City dollar store has pulled down its old sign, “Everything 99¢ Or Less,” and rebranded.